Transforming the nation's consciousness on race through the law, social science, and the arts.

Robert Hirsch’s “We the People”

Bob started painting this piece after Eva Paterson asked him to submit artwork for the Art of Civil Rights exhibition. Although initially unsure of what to create, Bob’s “We the People” eventually ended up being heavily influenced by “Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America,” a book by Gilbert King about Thurgood Marshall’s defense of four black men in Lake County, Florida, who were falsely accused of raping a white women in 1949. “It’s a devastating book that really affected my painting,” said Bob. Although impacted by what he read in “Devil in the Grove,” Bob’s painting is still a “celebration of the civil rights movement and the need to create ‘a more perfect union.’ “